Saudis Criticized Over Mecca Tunnel Disaster

By YOUSSEF M. IBRAHIM, Special to The New York Times

Published: July 19, 1990

CAIRO, July 18—
The death of 1,426 Muslim pilgrims earlier this month in a tunnel stampede in Mecca has led to strong criticism of Saudi Arabia in several Muslim countries in connection with the disaster.

In a statement last weekend that has stirred considerable attention among Muslims worldwide, the leader of Indonesia's largest and most distinguished association of Muslim scholars said, ''The Saudi Government cannot run from the responsibility for the tunnel disaster by simply saying it was an act of God.''

Although the Indonesian Government has been careful not to lay the blame for the disaster on the Saudi authorities, the Indonesian scholars' leader, Chalid Mawardi, left little doubt about the anger felt in Indonesia. The country is the world's largest Muslim nation, with nearly 90 percent of its 185 million people belonging to the Sunni branch of Islam.

About 680 Indonesian pilgrims, by far the largest number of people from one country, died in the stampede in a tunnel on July 2 during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

The Indonesian criticism followed a rebuke from Turkey, which also suffered the loss of many pilgrims. The Turks issued a brief statement soon after the stampede criticizing the Saudi Government over the incident.

The incident has brought renewed demands by Iran for international supervision over the holy Muslim sites of Mecca and Medina, which hold Islam's most revered shrines and are under Saudi sovereignty.

Iran has been feuding with Saudi Arabia over Mecca since more than 400 pilgrims, most of them Iranians, were killed there in clashes with Saudi security forces in 1987.

Iranians, who belong by and large to the Shiite branch of Islam have repeatedly charged that the Saudi royal family and the government of Saudi Arabia have neither the credentials nor the ability, to run the pilgrimage season, during which some 2 million Muslims flock to Saudi Arabia each year.

New Source of Criticism

But the new criticism of the Saudis from Sunni Muslims in countries like Indonesia and Turkey, which have been friendly to Saudi Arabia, may well carry political and religious significance.

The Indonesian group, the Nahdlatul Ulema association - roughly translated as the Scholars' Renaissance Association - charged Saudi Arabia with serious neglect, and demanded that the Saudis pay damages to the relatives of the Indonesians who died in the tunnel.

Indonesia's minister for religious affairs, Munawir Sjadzali was quoted by Reuters in Jakarta as having said on Monday that Saudi Arabia did not notify Indonesia about the burial place of the pilgrims until a week had passed.

Several Muslim organizations in Iran, Lebanon, Turkey and Indonesia have asked for an investigation by an international team, a suggestion that Saudi Arabia has rejected out of hand.

A day after the stampede, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia said in a nationally broadcast address that the disaster was the ''will of God.''

Most of the world's estimated one billion Muslims are Sunnis, while only about 10 percent are Shiites. Shiites are concentrated in Iran and Iraq, and in the Persian Gulf region.

Saudi Arabia has spared no effort to cultivate, finance and court Sunni Muslims around the world, particularly in Asia and Africa, in order to balance the enmity of Iran, which often castigates the Saudi royal family as one that practices ''American Islam.''

The bitter criticism from Indonesia's largest body of Sunni scholars has surprised many in the Arab world and clearly shaken the Saudis.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reported the statement extensively, highlighting it on its widely heard Arabic program Sunday, which is closely followed by Saudi and Arab audiences.

Arab officials from Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq and Bahrain were critical of the Saudi Government's handling of the incident in telephone interviews this week. But none of these officials were willing to criticize the Saudis publicly on behalf of their governments.